I only linked one season because I didn't feel like linking them all. As I said, development is more important than winning given that they are USSDA anyway. As far as the recent signings, that's great for them. But correlation does not equal causation and those kids may have been pros regardless of where they lived or played. All that aside, the reason I commented was because of your statement that we should support them simply because they are the local development academy. "I would hope that as someone who 'cares' about soccer in our area and in the country as a whole, you would support them rather than deride them. " That's like saying that you should support our local police or whatever, just because they are the local police, even if they are corrupt, etc. Or you should should always support your kids' school officials, because they are the school officials and they know best. Or any other analogy that you want to come to. Again, like I said, I'm not too familiar with them, so I'm not against them. But I wouldn't blindly be behind them either.
Fine but I've been around youth soccer in the region for about 10 years now at rec, travel, and premier levels and I have yet to see a club that is the equivalent of a corrupt police organization or ineffective, stonewalling school officials. Until I see a situation in which a club is doing more harm than good, all local youth teams have my support and I wish them the best. And the clubs most likely doing a diservice to youth players are not the "private" clubs like the Internationals, Cleveland Soccer Academy, Ohio Premier, etc but the community clubs that are run by primarily volunteer parents. As far as the criteria for USSDAs I think your interpretation of the last two bullets was a bit negative. I think those criteria mean a priority will actually be put on expansion of the number of teams in certain regions. US soccer's goal is to have development academies across the nation at a geograhic frequency so that no player has to travel more than an hour to get to training. The Frontier and Great Lakes Divisions are currently spread over much greater distances than the teams in the divisions on the east coast. That is a burden on those clulbs and something I understand US soccer hopes to eventually remedy. And while I'm sure US Soccer doesnt want to do anything to undermine existing academies, I know of nothing that prevents more than one academy from existing in a single metropolitan area. The St. Louis area has two academies and several of the very large metro areas have multiple academies. The Internationals do not recruit players so there is nothing preventing another Cleveland club from building a program capable of being chosen as a USSDA. My initial reason for posting is that I find it very distasteful to see someone associating themselves with AFC bashing local youth teams, and Crewsupporters post is not the first time I've seen this. It is very unprofessional and gives me zero confidence in AFC and its prospects as a pro team. This local team bashing, a bad video, unfullfilled promises of "big news", and a marginal logo and name are about all I've seen out of AFC. For me, there is zero reason to like AFC so far other than their idea of pro soccer in Cleveland Say what you want about the Akron PDL team and the amount of money they have sunk in to, but to me $250,000 at this point shows a lot more "endevour" than I have seen from AFC. If AFC hopes to grow itself and eventually becomes an MLS team the current expansion fee is $40,000,000 and growing. They will need to learn the money side of things too and they will not do that by making stupid comments that will only serve the purpose of keeping people away and alienating.
My son and I attended the free AFC Cleveland clinic this past Saturday and the event was attended by GGSN (broadcast over Cleveland Sports Forum Radio) which interviewed several people during the 4 hour event. The AFC CLE president gave his first public interview. AO Cleveland and 6th City Syndicate were represented as well. The production had several glitches but they say it's their first remote attempt. Good info throughout the interviews anyway, but don't hold your breath to learn where they'll play or what league they'll land in. Neither has been decided yet. I signed my son up months ago hoping to get AFC CLE info at the event. Looking at pictures from the last free clinic I recognized some people so asked them how I could get involved. I received a message saying that the Spectrum coaches had a tourney Saturday and some youth coaches were needed to fill in. I jumped at the chance since I was going anyway and ended up having a lot of fun training mini keepers after the lunch break. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of very young first time soccer players. I feel the event was well organized, the parents seemed pleased, and the radio presence was an interesting addition. Give it a listen: http://mixlr.com/csfradio1/csfradio-live-at-afc-cleveland-free-soccer-clinic
Akron Metro is almost certainly not returning for the next season. They struggled to even get crowds of 200 at their games. AFC Cleveland is now officially in NPSL and in a division with Buffalo, Detroit, Erie PA, and Binghamton NY. Our supporters group is going strong. We know where we will be in the stadium and we're working on creating a membership package.
Where will they be playing? I couldn't find that anywhere. Also, it looks like 6CS grew out of the local AO, is that right?
We will be on the opposite bleacher away from everyone else. The stadium is on the west side and has been used for pro soccer before. It should be fairly obvious where we are playing.
Then why can't you just say it? Are you talking about Byers? Good luck getting fans from the east side. Too bad they didn't pick a more central location, but the owner lives over there, so I can see why they went with it.
There were lots of problems with Krenzler, I think CSU was making things really difficult. And from what I've been able to tell, most of the AO Cleveland people are West Siders and there are lots of Serbian and Ukranian soccer fans in Parma. Byers isn't ideal, but I think it's the best given the circumstances.
Don't you think one of the reasons that most of the AO people are westsiders is because they meet on the west side? Heck, they're more south than anything else. I get it, they have to be somewhere, but I'm just saying if it was more central it would be better. I wasn't suggesting Krenzler.
I heard the Akron PDL team is for sale with a strong posibility that the team will not remain in Akron. groups interested in buying them: Youngstown Toledo
Can someone please tell me what this AO people or AO Cleveland is. If it short for something can someone please mention what it stands for and what it represents
It's possible. I don't know where most of the AO guys are from. I'm a member but I've not really been able to go to many of the events with living in Columbus for school. Byers is central for me, which is clearly the most important factor here. Unfortunately, there aren't many good options that are central, other than Krenzler. They could go to BW, but that's still on the southwest side, albeit closer to the highway. For now, I think Byers will work well. I like that the supporters will be away from the families so we won't have the problems like we did with the Green Army and Bedford.
Browns Stadium is central. How about Don Shula at John Carroll? I could ride my bike to the games. In reality... Case Field is decent sized and centrally located. But I know they'll end up at Byers. It's too bad. I'd drive that far for MLS, but not for NPSL, at least not for season tickets.
Case would be interesting. It's a smaller stadium [2,400?] and it is more centrally located. I just wonder about parking. But yes, I'd say it's 99% certain that the team will be playing at Byers next season. Maybe it was a decision to put the team on the West Side.
Well, I just figured the owner might have some connections through his main business or otherwise. He's based in Parma so that would be where he has built up the support structure.
Yeah - but I'm visioning 50 or so supporters alone on one of the sides. This looks a bit silly to me. (not trying to disrespect)
One thing to remember, when the Stars played at Bedford it failed. That move was due to a USL1 requirement that they had to have a 5000 seat stadium otherwise the would have stayed at CSU. During the two years at CSU, crowds were not bad. They averaged around 700 a game and had a few games that averaged around a 1000 or more. I remember some people that I talk to would not go downtown to see a game. They felt CSU is not the safest area, cars were broken into during games etc.... I was at one of the AO Outings the FO talked about the stadium problem. CSU - Did not what to rent the facility (it was the number one choice) BW - (was not interested due to construstion in 2012) John Carroll was looked at- but they do not allow any games after 4pm on Sat Case was not interested Seven other locations were looked at but did not meet the league requirements. Two of those locations had grass fields and some of feilds were not wide enough. So I can see that choices were very limited and they tried very hard. Its hard to make everyone happy. What can you do.
I call BS on the "cars were broken into". I never heard of that happening even once. And since you used the multiple that means you're alleging it happened more than one time. It's more of the paranoid suburban mentality and misperception of the downtown area. CSU is not that bad. Btw, I heard all those other things before, but that's when they had to meet USL1 requirements. They don't have to meet those requirements now so they have dozens of other potential places. Granted, some of them are very small, high school parks, but you get my point. It's really a moot point anyway, because they'll end up at Byers.
I think the biggest problem they had now is field width. A lot of the stadiums they wanted weren't actually wide enough. But again, it's a moot point since the team is going to play at Byers this season. EDIT: And I didn't hear about anyone getting their cars broken into. Plus, we were getting crowds that way twice the size of 700/1000 at Krenzler.
According to google maps, the center of Lakewood is 10 miles from Byers and you don't even have to get on the freeway. Takes 24 minutes. I live in the inner ring eastern suburbs and it's 25 miles 37 minutes. A lot of people that went to CCS games lived further east than me. Granted, I'm sure there are some people down south that would appreciate the new location. Like you said, you can't make everyone happy. I just hope he's not expecting to draw 700-800 people a game and charge $10 a ticket.
You live in Cleveland Heights, yes? Take Warrensville Center to 480, 480 to Ridge, Ridge to Byers Field. There, I just saved you 4 minutes!
South Euclid. And I know how to get there. You ever try to take Center to 480 from here? More like add 10 minutes at least from lights, traffic, etc. Just not worth it to me. I can go to UAkron games, it's about the same time and distance for me and it would be better soccer. Not to mention that I'm a current student there as well. But I probably won't do that as well. CCS was the perfect situation, Third Division soccer very close by. I'm not going to spend the gas money and the 1.5 hours commute to watch a sunday league allstar team. Btw, I'm not knocking them, but that's what they will be. Far better than I am. It's just the level where I draw the line in my head.